


It Was Bound to Happen Sometime

by m_meagher



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Sam Seaborn Ainsley Hayes AU, Santos Administration, The West Wing - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:14:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27742081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_meagher/pseuds/m_meagher
Summary: About a year into the Santos Administration, Deputy Chief-of-Staff Sam Seaborn finally screws up the nerve to ask White House Counsel Ainsley Hayes on the date he's been wanting to take her on for years.
Relationships: Ainsley Hayes/Sam Seaborn, Josh Lyman/Donna Moss, Josh Lyman/Sam Seaborn
Comments: 1
Kudos: 37





	It Was Bound to Happen Sometime

It had been a complicated year for Sam Seaborn. After leaving his corner office and seven-figure salary at one of Malibu’s most respected law firms, Sam found himself back at the White House for the first time since that notorious California 47th district campaign. Somehow his longtime friend Josh Lyman had convinced him to join the Santos administration as Deputy Chief-of-Staff, and for reasons that were often still unclear to Sam, he had come onboard.

While this was not a decision he regretted—well, most of the time—the cost to his personal life turned out to be steep. A few months into the new presidential term, Sam’s fiancée called off their wedding on the pretext that she absolutely could not live 2,600 miles from the Los Angeles sunshine. But he knew the truth. All those 15-hour workdays, cancelled dinner reservations and brief, hasty kisses before rushing out the door were just too much for them to weather. She no longer envisioned a future with him, and Sam could not exactly blame her.

When was the last time he had stayed awake during a conversation or initiated a sexual encounter? She refused to take a secondary role to his career, and he made no effort to stop her when she booked a one-way flight home to LAX. But if Sam was honest, the primal emotion that surfaced when he thought about her departure was relief.

No more punitive glances, snide remarks or melancholic sighs when he crept into their bedroom after 2AM for the fourth time in one week. No more clouds of shame, remorse and self-debasement pressing on his shoulders. Of course, Sam missed her—but now he was free to serve both the president and the nation without any undertones of guilt. 

But there was another reason Sam was not as stricken by the demise of their relationship as maybe he should have been. A two-word explanation, in fact: Ainsley Hayes. The White House counsel who—Republican ideologies aside—caused his stomach to lurch and pulse to hammer anytime she marched past him in the halls with a laser focused expression and a donut in hand. In the immediate aftermath of his breakup, Sam had fought the attraction to Ainsley, but who was he fooling? Any interaction with that blonde hair, North Carolina accent and sharp legal mind, and Sam went from waxing poetic to rambling inarticulately.

He was enamored with a conservative lawyer with whom he disagreed on almost every salient issue—talk about a complicated year. And to further entangle himself in all this absurdity, Sam now had a plan. This morning he would traipse into Ainsley’s office, invite her on a date and then refuse to take “no” for an answer. _It’s been way too long, Seaborn,_ he emboldened himself mentally. _If Josh can pull his head out of his ass and work it out with Donna, then you have no excuse._ So the Deputy Chief-of-Staff rolled his sleeves, squared his posture and drew in a theatrical inhale before turning on his heel in the direction of Ainsley Hayes. 

_I can nail this. I can nail this. I can nail this_ , Sam chanted under his breath as he clambered down the stairs to her office. An image flashed across his mind then of Ainsley in a white bathrobe dancing to “Blame It on the Bossa Nova,” blithely unaware that he and former President Bartlet had a front-row seat to her performance. Sam cracked a reflexive smile at the memory. Had he felt it all those years ago—that sensation in his chest he could not seem to temper, but also could not name? Was he in love with the bathrobe-clad lawyer who turned her office into a dance floor like no one was watching, not even the Commander-in-Chief?

By the time Sam reached Ainsley’s door, his heart appeared to have lodged itself in his trachea. He knocked tentatively, then heard her no-nonsense voice shoot back, “It’s open,” and eased his way inside. Without peeling her eyes from the legal brief on her desk, Ainsley waved her hand to a chair and absently murmured, “Please take a seat.”

Sam cleared his throat, and Ainsley’s head snapped to attention. “Oh hey, Sam, it’s you! How can I help? Does the president need something?” She hastily smoothed her blazer and shuffled out from behind the desk. Here was his moment of opportunity, and eloquent Sam Seaborn found himself at a loss for grandiose, romantic words. So instead he latched onto brevity and blurted out the question, “Want to have dinner with me sometime? I mean, today...this evening? You can choose the restaurant.” Sweat pricked the base of his scalp. _Has it always been this airless in the West Wing? Take a breath, Sam—focus._

“As in like...a date?” Ainsley labored over the sentence, testing both its sound and implications in her mouth. “I don’t know. Consider the optics, Sam. People in this town...all they do is talk, and it’s my reputation on the line. You’ve heard the rumors about Donna Moss. How she slept her way into the East Wing?” At this Sam curtly interjected, “False. As you’re well aware.” Josh and Donna were two of his closest friends, so he was fiercely protective of their new—albeit long overdue—relationship. “Who cares about the D.C. gossip columns, Ainsley? I want to spend time with you. I want to debate Supreme Court verdicts with you. I want to trade law school memories and horror stories with you. Just one dinner, please.”

Ainsley chewed her bottom lip as a blend of hesitation and consideration eclipsed her features. As he observed this inner conflict, Sam noticed a morsel of powdered sugar residue on her chin and suddenly realized which tactic to use. “Listen, there’s a bakery in Georgetown, not too much of a walk from here. They have the most delicious cupcakes. Can I prove it to you?” Ainsley digested this information, then a half-smile crinkled her face. “I leave the White House around 7:30PM. Meet me at the back entrance tonight. It’s a date.”

Before he quite knew what transpired next, Sam bridged the distance between them, and his mouth claimed hers for a kiss—chaste, but outside of West Wing decorum nonetheless. They both reeled apart in the same instant, Sam driveling out a spew of frantic apologies. “I’m sorry. That was...unprofessional. Not sure what came over me. Did I mention that I’m sorry?” But Ainsley just chuckled, “It was bound to happen sometime.” 

In a daze of astonishment, Sam was only semi-conscious of his feet meandering away from her office and down the corridor to his own. Automatically he paused at the coffee station as was his normal routine, then made an improvised detour to Josh’s office. Leaning on the doorjamb in a stance of feigned nonchalance, Sam announced to his friend without preamble, “So I asked out Ainsley Hayes, and believe it or not, she agreed.” He drained the weak, styrofoam coffee in a—counterproductive, come to think of it—effort to bridle his nerves. 

Ever the politician, Josh muttered, “You’re a senior advisor to the president. She’s the White House counsel. You sure that’s...well, kosher? Might need to at least inform Lou.” Sam remembered a similar discussion he had with C.J. Cregg a year into the Bartlet administration. “Lou is my first call if anything...moves forward,” he promised. Then as an afterthought, “Oh and we kissed about 10 minutes ago.” Now this secured the Chief-of-Staff's interest. “In the White House? Okay then. Not the most ideal timing, but how did she respond?”

“Weird, different. Not at all how I would have expected her to. She told me it was bound to happen sometime.” For a moment, Josh’s expression was inscrutable, then he grinned full and broad. “Her reply verbatim?” Sam tipped his chin in the affirmative, and Josh answered a question the other man held in his eyes. “That is what Donna said too.” 

**Author's Note:**

> It's an obvious caveat, but I'll state it nonetheless—I do not own these characters, but I'm thankful to Aaron Sorkin for creating them. I always loved Sam and Ainsley's kind of antagonistic, kind of flirtatious dynamic in the earlier seasons, and I would not have been at all disappointed to see them end up together!


End file.
